Sunday, May 06, 2007

In the Hall of Merit’s 100th “year” of existence, star Expo and Met backstop Gary Carter sailed into our institution with a robust 97% of all possible points in his first year of eligibility.

Curveball master Bert Blyleven also commanded an impressive newbie tally with his 93% of all possible points.

But the biggest news may very well be the induction of famed turn-of-the-last century first baseman Jake Beckley in his 86th year of eligibility (though he shattered Edd Roush’s dubious 1-year old record of 29% of all possible points with his own 25%). Congratulations also go to Eagle Eye’s biggest booster karlmagnus, who tirelessly supported him for many an election.

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I must get quite a high consensus score this time, will be interesting to see. Meanwhile I'd take beckley in a shot for the 2007 or even 1998 Red Sox, even though I quite like Kevin Youkilis, (never took much to Mo Vaughan) though come to think of it at 131 or 140 years old he's more of a fit with the Yankees :-)

1) We have our first Expo.
2) We have Bert.
3) We don't have to deal with the bad news until at least two years from now.
4) Karl will die a happy man.

Bad news next:

1) I'm not exactly a fan of Beckley's, though less of an enemy than in previous years. I still fail to see the separation between him and four or five other 1Bs, among whom only Perez is getting serious backing. I hope Beckley's election doesn't look like an inconsistency when we reach 2007, nor especially do I hope that FO Perez or other 1Bs in the field use Beckley's election as justification for their candidate's would-be election. As an extreme backlogger with massively divided opinion about his candidacy, he's probably on the in/out line and can hardly be construed as representing any kind of consensus about the relative qualifications of other 1B candidates. In other words, he is not a credible starting point in an if-than argument.

2) More important, I find Stieb's poor showing a little unfortunate. I'm willing to concede I'm probably wrong about Randolph (though he wouldn't be my choice), but I think Stieb's debut, while not low certainly, speaks to skepticism about "best of a bad lot" among 1980s AL starters. That's not an reasonable position, but I think DanR's analysis, which suggests that the 1980s were a time of especially narrow distribtions of performance (that is, harder to have dominant seasons in) is worth keeping in mind. In addition, while Stieb isn't terribly far behind Walters, there's good reason to believe he ought to be closer or even ahead of Bucky, particularly when taking the lower quality of war play into account.

3) More important yet, I'm just mystified by Dick Redding who, to my mind, didn't come out as a stud between Chris' ERA+ and WS projections and the HOF's 1920s stats. I'll have to take another look at his thread.

all-time 'votes points' thru 1998 - those still eligible in 1999 election are in CAPS. electees are not in caps.

Congrats to Beckley, who leaves as the only 25,000-pt man.... Congrats also to Van Haltren and Duffy, who now chase the top spot together... Welch passes Jennings for 8th, sets his sights on pitching leaders Griffith and Waddell... Redding now the 10th member of the 15,000-pt club.

2) More important, I find Stieb's poor showing a little unfortunate. . . . Stieb isn't terribly far behind Walters, there's good reason to believe he ought to be closer or even ahead of Bucky, particularly when taking the lower quality of war play into account.

Stieb is close enough that he could rise rapidly once SNT fear wears off and more head-to-head comparisons with Walters show his quality. I think there's cause for optimism here.

3) More important yet, I'm just mystified by Dick Redding who, to my mind, didn't come out as a stud between Chris' ERA+ and WS projections and the HOF's 1920s stats. I'll have to take another look at his thread.

I agree. I don't think the electorate has really studied the HoF numbers for him, and we ought to look again at the fragmentary teens data before electing him on reputation alone. I'm looking forward to having more time for serious analysis and debate after this week!

> DanR's analysis, which suggests that the 1980s were a time of especially narrow distribtions of performance (that is, harder to have dominant seasons in)

I think this is confusing the cause and the effect. Was there something structural in the game that caused players not to have dominant seasons? Or did they just not have them? Can somebody tell me how you know which is the cause and which is the effect?

Stieb had a fine showing, #15, the #3 backlog pitcher, 10+ ballots, 200 points, a man can be proud of having that kind of support. He is ahead of players like Dizzy Dean, Burleigh Grimes, Mickey Welch, Addie Joss, Lefty Gomez. A fine showing.

I agree with Eric that in that Stieb's showing is unfortuantely low. I am a Bucky Walters fan (and a Dick Redding fan) and I had Stieb just below both of them. It is possible that Stieb could flip flip with Walters for me (I see them as virtual equals). Can someone explain to me why Walters and not Stieb?

Second, while it was inevitable that Beckley would get in some day, and while I am sort of proud that people like me kept him out as long as they did, I stil lhave to say 'ugh'. He is currently the worst HOM in my rankings BY FAR. I guess this is how people felt when Charlie Keller or Sir Hughie were elected, despite their obviously superior credentials...;-)

All of that said, for some reason I am more worried that Bob Johnson might make it than Beckley, even though I have Johnson ranked higher. Why do we need another 30's outfielder who could stand out amongst his peers?

Johnson doesn't have fanatical supporters, so may not be a great danger. I would have thought Duffy, Cravath and Jones were all more likely, because there's more of a "story" there. Jake got in eventually because his total lack of story eventually became a story, but I'm not sure that works more than once in 80 "years" or so.

3) More important yet, I'm just mystified by Dick Redding who, to my mind, didn't come out as a stud between Chris' ERA+ and WS projections and the HOF's 1920s stats. I'll have to take another look at his thread.

I'm not sure how much is in the Redding thread. Several people must have upgraded him in the last few years, perhaps without comment that anyone noticed?

Among the 13 leaders, eleven appear on 30-odd% of the ballots (with Randolph in the high 40s, Jones in the high 20s). So that eleven has roughly equal opportunity to gain points. Among them, support for Redding (5), Fingers, Browning, Jones, and Perez (4 each) is soft because they got a few elect-me bonuses this year. Walters and Oms (last of the 13) got no bonuses, everyone else got one or two. Randolph, Cravath, and Stieb are poised to drop off five ballots next year, but that should be short-term

Who are they? The backlog is no longer dominated by bats, and the bats tend to be a little lower (italics)

Dr. C: 3) More important yet, I'm just mystified by Dick Redding who, to my mind, didn't come out as a stud between Chris' ERA+ and WS projections and the HOF's 1920s stats. I'll have to take another look at his thread.

PW: I'm not sure how much is in the Redding thread. Several people must have upgraded him in the last few years, perhaps without comment that anyone noticed?

Redding's support has been pretty steady. The top ten is extremely bunched. His climb appears to be due losing less suppot to the newbies than other candidates.

I thought he was a 1910s candidate. That's why I wasn't concerned about the 1920s data. He was born in 1890.

2) More important, I find Stieb's poor showing a little unfortunate. I'm willing to concede I'm probably wrong about Randolph (though he wouldn't be my choice), but I think Stieb's debut, while not low certainly, speaks to skepticism about "best of a bad lot" among 1980s AL starters. That's not an reasonable position, but I think DanR's analysis, which suggests that the 1980s were a time of especially narrow distribtions of performance (that is, harder to have dominant seasons in) is worth keeping in mind. In addition, while Stieb isn't terribly far behind Walters, there's good reason to believe he ought to be closer or even ahead of Bucky, particularly when taking the lower quality of war play into account.

I like the rate stats and the peak is good... but how many HOM-ers do we have with fewer than 3000 IP? He's no Koufax or Pedro and he looks quite a bit like Tommy Bridges.

At the halfway mark, 1948, Redding was 24th. Since then he has passed Van Haltren, Duffy, Welch, Lundy, Browning, Leach.
In 1958, he was 24th again. Since then he has passed Van Haltren, Duffy, Browning, Welch. On the other hand, Mendez, Gordon, Waddell, Roush, Keller, and Trouppe have passed Redding.
Roush was 18th in 1948, 37th in 1958! Maybe Redding has been fairly steady.

John mentioned the highlights, but here's the whole consensus score post.

49 voters is a low-turnout election. Dan Rosenheck, 'zop, and TomD didn't vote this "year." And it's been two "years" since Jeff M, Patrick W, or Trevor P last voted. I haven't checked the recent ballots of those people to see whether their absence made any difference - someone else can if they want to.

The average consesnsus score was -4.4, which is what passes for a "high-consensus" year these days.The highest possible score was +7. Here's how various individuals ranked:

Supporting Beckley wasn't worth all that much in favor of anyone's consensus scores because Beckley was a rather weakly supported candidate, appearing on fewer than half the ballots and having only 3 "elect me" votes. It's just that everyone else had even weaker support. Leaving either Carter or Blyleven out of one's "elect me" votes counted strongly against a consensus score.

DavidFoss, you are absolutely right. It occurred to me in the bath this morning that now was time to start putting some effort behind the Addie Joss campaign. He's a somewhat better Koufax and we elected Koufax on the first ballot. It will be amusing to revert to my Caruthers-period alliances, when the peaksters agreed I was a pretty sound fellow and the career types denounced me as a lunatic. Dr. Chaleeko, I take it I can count on your support?

Interestingly, Beckley's low record of 25%, beating the next best at 29%, for percentage support in getting elected will probably last several centuries. It's not really a reflection on Beckley; he was only just behind Roush in 1997 so wouild normally have been expected to take the record by a sliver, not drive a truck through it. To get that low you need to be a borderline/deep backlog candidate in a year when all the slots bar one are taken by slam dunks and other newbies are below election level. That way you get a minimal number of "elect-mes" and lose several people off the bottom falling from 15th to 16th. It's a rare year that has that combination, however; we'll probably see a lot of marginal candidates elected with percentages worse than Roush but better than Beckley.

The speed and depth at which we're tearing through our backlog suggests to me that the assumption that expansion produces more elite ballplayers is in fact false. By electing 3 every year we are exhausting the supply of recent HOM-quality players, if you assume we are smart enough to keep standrads approximately level between eras. Expansion in fact produces dilution, the alternative hypothesis. This also suggests that 1940s and 1950s players, the last who ran the gauntlet before expansion, may be the ones to lose out.

The average consesnsus score was -4.4.... Here's how various individuals ranked:

Mark Shirk: +2
Howie Menckel: +2
Esteban Rivera: +1
ronw: +1
TomH: +1

Me? High consensus? How dare I be labeled as trendy? Fear not, fellow voters. With Beckley gone, and once Bill Monroe, Bob Elliot and Rick Reuschel get on my ballot in the near future, I shall re-plumb the depths of contrarianism!

Joss has been on my ballot for many many years. I had missed him the first time and then got him on my ballot only in a pitcher re-eval in 1941. Joss, Vance, Rixey and Griffith all came on my ballot and McCormick and Mendez dropped off. Mendez got back on in 1952, McCormick never did. I remember karl adding Joss to his ballot after that and making the same comment I did, that is, oops, missed him the first time around. Anyway, I think he was #9 last time. I have him ahead of Ryan but with Blyleven elected he (Joss) is the #1 starting pitcher on my ballot for 1999 at least, the #1 backlog starting pitcher. But with just 4 ballots and only 10 years to go, I think he defines the phrase "lost cause." The IP fans haven't warmed up to him yet, and they're not gonna.

Murph,
The list itself is a very good idea, I like it. But pegging it to the imaginary '1998' rather than real time only confuses people.
It's like when a comedian tells a joke - if people don't laugh, then it isn't funny.

I'd humbly suggest the minor adjustment that simply lists actual guys who are in the HOM but have never gotten into the HOF. I think otherwise people get stuck on what they think are errors, and they don't get the full benefit of the lists.
...........
As for Beckley, I had him 8th. I don't see any reason to hang our heads. He's got the lowest peak and the longest prime on the entire holdover ballot. So which wins?

I haven't voted for Dizzy Dean in 50 years, easy, but if he got elected, I'd figure, 'Well, he's got the highest 2-3 year monster peak on the entire ballot, and there's something to be said for that, too.'

Well, except that Diz doesn't have the highest 2-3 year monster peak. At least his ERA+ doesn't say so. To me the big peak pitcher is Vic Willis with Joss and Walters next. Oh, and Dick Redding and Hilton Smith depending on how you read the translations.

My problem with Joss is that he never had a high number of IP in season when comapred to his peers. It looks like a lot of innings in a modern context, but not when compared to his contemproraries. I may have voted for Joss at one point, I certainly had him in my to 25. But his case depends on ERA+ more than most any other pitcher and so he has fallen out of my top 60.

In my RA+ PythPat equivalent records, I have Joss at 161-98. Back-calculating that record to the RA+ that would have produced under neutral conditions, you get 128. While 128 is still a very good number, it doesn't match his ERA+. There are two reasons for this: Joss did allow more than his share of unearned runs (never getting our attention called to that as in Waddell's case) and because he pitched entirely in an extreme low scoring era, the win value of his ERA+ wasn't quite what it would have been in a higher-scoring time.

My "raw" number for Willis was 258-186. He's one of the handful of pitchers for whom I estimated an adjustment based on the defenses that supported him. That adjustment knocks him down to 248-196. Using that number, the difference between Willis and Joss comes out as 87-96. Now 87-96 isn't all that spectacular, but i do take it to be positive value. And my "big years score" of yearly FWP over 15 are nearly the same: 44 for Willis, 40 for Joss.

Here are my takes on the two:

1. Joss gets no extra credit from me for getting sick and dying. That's as much a part of his baseball record as anything else.
2. I would rank Willis ahead of Joss. I understand the voters who have Willis on their ballots better than I understand those with Joss.
3. For both of them, I would acknowledge that they pitched when IP were easier to come by than they would have been post-1920. Hence I rank both of them lower than their RA+-equivalent W-L would suggest, and neither is currently in my top 30.
4. We were right to pass over Joss when he was a fresh candidate. There's no good reason to revive his case now. We've had a lot of candidates since - for instance, why should Joss rank ahead of Lefty Gomez?

The speed and depth at which we're tearing through our backlog suggests to me that the assumption that expansion produces more elite ballplayers is in fact false. By electing 3 every year we are exhausting the supply of recent HOM-quality players, if you assume we are smart enough to keep standrads approximately level between eras. Expansion in fact produces dilution, the alternative hypothesis. This also suggests that 1940s and 1950s players, the last who ran the gauntlet before expansion, may be the ones to lose out.

Well, I don't know about that, seeing how Sutton, Hernandez and the Evanses flew in.

1 above average player for incredibly long.
2 1B was different in 1900 than today, distorting perception of value. Clearly the best career-value 1Bman from his era.
3 no peak. at all. I mean none. So some voters cringe at honoring him.

30 spots to go. At least 19 will be claimed by new candidates (Boggs, Brett, Clark, Eckersley, Fisk, Gossage, Gwynn, McGwire, Murray, Molitor, Raines, Ripken, Ryan, Sandberg, Smith, Trammell, Whitaker, Winfield, Yount). As many as 4 other spots could go to new candidates (Dawson, Mattingly, Puckett, Randolph). So we're looking at somewhere between 7 and 10 spots for the current backlog and an outside chance of no backloggers getting in again until 2004 (if Randolph leapfrogs Redding by 2000 which seems likely, and if we elect all three of Puckett, Mattingly and Dawson which doesn't).

This also suggests that 1940s and 1950s players, the last who ran the gauntlet before expansion, may be the ones to lose out.

I agree that the players of the '40s and '50s had to run a tougher gauntlet than the post-expansion players. But I don't agree that they've lost out in the long run. Those two decades have made up the gap through recent backlog elections. It started with the 1987 vote when 3 players from the '50s were voted in (Kiner, Pierce and Minoso). Recently, we elected 2 other players from the '40s and one more from the '50s (Trouppe, Keller and Fox). Currently, we have one other '40s candidate high in the backlog (Walters). So, while the '40s and '50s trail the decades immediately preceding and following (the '30s and the '60s), they're about even with the earlier decades of the 1880s through the 1920s.

An "elect-me" vote means it is in the top n, where n is the number of electees that year. Those votes get a 4-point bonus, so in an elect-3 year, the points for each ballot are tallied 24-23-22-17-16-15-14-13-12-11-10-9-8-7-6.

sunnyday2, I am most definitely not confusing cause and effect. There were absolutely structural factors in the game which made it harder to dominate: it had been a long time since expansion, it was a high population per team era, and run scoring was low. I have shown all of those factors to have extremely robust and significant negative correlations to standard deviation over MLB history. Just take a look at the regression results, which are available in the Hall of Merit Yahoo group.

I was traveling all last week and didn't get to vote. Randolph wouldn'tve been high enough on my ballot for me to have made a difference, though.

I meant of late (last five years or so). No major recent evals have vaulted him into 4th place. Its the same 19-20 voters giving him points for the past five years or so.

In the long haul, Redding has had an interesting candidacy. He was 6th in 1973 & 76 and 5th in 1977 -- ahead of many later inductees each year. Then the "new 1920s information" came out and he took a beating. I think his current position in the backlog is just the natural percolation up the backlog as people are inducted in front of him.

Mr. Hanrahan's previous point about lack of "bat" candidates since 1960 misses the mark.

Many players catgorized as "glove" positions played a significant part of their career as "bats"; exhibit A are newly eligibles Yount and Brett, thought of as SS and 3B, but played a lot of OF and 1B/DH.

Secondly, it's obvious that we have honored more "bats" than "gloves" over the course of this project; should we panic because we might (horrors!) be in danger of bringing the ratio back in line?

Chris F., why is it likely Randolph will leap-frog Redding? I mean, obviously, some people who didn't vote this year could turn up. And I don't know who got 16th and 17th place votes this year. And I don't know where Gossage is going to land. If generally in an elect-me slot, then the backlog does not move up. So to me that's a lot of unknowns, and all else being equal, well, all else will be equal. What do you know that I don't know?

>it had been a long time since expansion, it was a high population per team era, and run scoring was low.

OK I get the expansion thing.

Was it a high population per team era? Do we know that? Do we know that it matters, considering the increasing numbers of kids playing other sports? Or is this just an inference from the expansion thing?

Explain to me again how low run scoring makes it harder to "dominate." What does "dominate" mean? What numbers did you use? (Sorry, I just find this to be difficult.)

The big reason is the number of ballots. Randolph was on 23 ballots to Redding's 19. Generally, the player on more ballots is the one elected.

I mean, obviously, some people who didn't vote this year could turn up.

In the last 5 elections, Redding's high has been 20 ballots, which he reached 3 times, so it's not like Redding had a bunch of missing supporters who failed to vote this year. As others have noted, Redding has been pretty steady of late.

And I don't know who got 16th and 17th place votes this year.

I didn't do a systematic approach. But I did notice that Randolph was just off of a couple of ballots in 16th or 17th. A number of voters are worried about the Shiny New Toy phenomenon and therefore take a conservative approach to new candidates. So Randolph is more likely to add a couple of extra ballots than Redding. Furthermore, he's more likely to add elect-me bonuses than Redding as Redding is already pretty much maxed out in that category. Finally, with the conservative approach to SNT's, it's more likely that Randolph will move up a couple of spots on individual ballots than Redding. With all of those different factors, it shouldn't be too hard for Randolph to make up the 11 point difference. Two extra ballots and one more elect-me spot would do it (or vice versa). It's not a guarantee. It's just likely, especially as Randolph has two elections in which to close the gap and not just one.

And I don't know where Gossage is going to land.

I don't know for sure where Gossage is going to land either. Based on his support in our simulated Hall of Fame voting in which he's been elected in each of the last three years along with Blyleven and Trammell, and based on the numerous comments throughout this site which rank him as a top 3 reliever of all-time with Wilhelm and Rivera, I'd have to say that he's going to land pretty high. And it's not like he'd need that much support. 50% of the ballots would do it. Considering the current position of Rollie Fingers (8th in the most recent vote), it seems very likely that Gossage will go in on his first ballot.

To me that's a lot of unknowns, and all else being equal, well, all else will be equal. What do you know that I don't know?

Yup, there are a lot of unknowns. But there's also past history and voting patterns on which to base predictions. I think it's pretty likely that 2000 will be Ryan, Randolph and Gossage. But I could be wrong.

Ask and ye shall receive. Actually, I had been posting this a while back, but just hadn't reposted in a while. FWIW, I never liked the "pretend time" list and always posted through the present who were eligible for the HOM and were elected to the HOF.

The "pretend time" list was fun when we used to do more "pretend time" discussion. We'd envision a pretend acceptance speech by Deacon White... Someone in 1937 would post that they noticed a kid down in San Diego tearing up AA pitching... someone would post their pessimistic outlook for the Braves' 1914 season. That type of thing. As we've gotten closer to the present we've gotten away from that and without the "pretend time" discussion it is pretty darn confusing.

HOF-not-HOM (eligibles only)

This is a nice list. Sure it contains some real lemons, but it also contains many active HOM candidates and also some player who might deserve a second look from us.

Anyway there are indeed some lemons there who seem to be pretty real, but Brett, Yount, Fisk and Ryan look pretty good and I kinda like Fingers, Joss, Rizzuto and Willis, too. Anybody who thinks we're short of pitchers, there they are ;-)

Interesting note: Beckley's election was a flukish thing. If Dan R. hadn't been flying intercontinentally, and I hadn't broken up with a ladyfriend of several years on Sunday night, it appears Randolph would have been 3rd...since both of us are big on the 80's generation. Stieb also would have placed higher, b/c I was going to give him a spot on the top half of my ballot for sure, maybe even higher.

If someone doesn't mind, I'd like to hear a brief summmary about the Beckley candidacy. If not, I understand, Beckley might be like steroids in the newsblog and maybe no one wants to rehash his story.

IMO, he's Rafael Palmeiro, without the steriod controversy. If his career spanned 1988-2007, instead of 1888-1907, he would have finished his career with 3000 hits and 500 HR. BPro's translated stats show him with 3077 hits and 527 HR for example.

Palmeiro was only a 4x all-star, Beckley probably would have had a similar number. Unlike Palmeiro, Beckley's era wasn't littered with all-time greats at the position - he was probably the best overall 1B of the 1890s and early 1900s (Palmeiro obviously wasn't in his era), it was just that every year there was a different guy on top at the position.

But they are extremely similar as players when you adjust for the era. Beckley had outstanding power for his era, 6x in the top 8 in HR, 7x in the top 10 in 3B (4th all time), 5x in the top 5 in his league in TB, etc. He didn't draw a ton of walks, but he did hit .033 over the average batting average for his era (.308 vs. .275). His OBP was .361 vs. .341 average, his SLG was .435 vs. .366 average. He was a very consistent, very good hitter.

His adjusted for season EQA was .290 vs. Palmeiro's .295. They were very similar players.

I think his 'total lack of peak' is a little overstated because of WS inability to understand the importance of fielding 1B before 1920, when so much more of the game took place in the IF. IMO 1B was just as important as CF defensively in this time . . . the defensive spectrum was more like SS/3B 2B/1B/CF LF/RF at this time.

Personally I always thought "WS inability to understand the importance of fielding 1B before 1920" is what was over-stated. But every issue surrounding Beckley has been over-stated. Not a big deal, but just my impression. Like I said, I didn't support Beckley but you can't say he didn't stand the test of time.

Beckley-haters shouldn't kick themselves for letting him in; with the 3 a year he had several opportunities between now and 2009. Indeed, if Randolph had made it this year Beckley might well have made it in 2000. His support broadened modestly but significantly as a percentage of the electorate in the last few years; he had more voters this year than Redding/Browning/Walters/Fingers. If you look back at 1988, you'll find that whether above or below Beckley, those with more voters have gone in, those without haven't.

I agree with Joe on the Palmeiro comparison; my guess is steriods will be just enough to keep Palmeiro out, otherwise he'd have gone into the HOF certainly and the HOM probably. However, looking for one last time at Beckley's stats page, I think he'd have done better than Palmeiro on All-Star games, partly because he didn't have much competition and the All-Star game is small-c conservative, so likes to vote the same players every year and not reward one-year wonders.

Assuming they elected 3 1Bs every year, Beckley would have missed out in 1890, 1891 1893 and 1894 because of this (being 2nd best 1B in 1890 but beaten by ABCs) but would have beaten the fading Anson in 1895, missed in his mediocre 1896 and then been in an ASG in 1897, possibly 1898, definitely 1899, 1900, 1901, 1902, 1903 and 1904. That's 8-9 ASGs, simply because he was the best long term 1B of his era. Argue about 1-2 of them, he would still have been well ahead of Palmeiro. The 1-year wonders would not have made it ahead of the consistent star if the latter was having a decent year.

So to me that's a lot of unknowns, and all else being equal, well, all else will be equal. What do you know that I don't know?

There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns---the ones we don't know we don't know.

There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns---the ones we don't know we don't know.

Disagree with KJOK about Anson, Brouthers, and Connor. While Beckley was a candidate for all-star each year, Brouthers and Connor, and sometimes Anson, were usually candidates for best player in the league. My 2 cents.

Thanks, Joe. I've read Win Shares so I was aware that 3B was more of a defensive postion back then. George Davis was even moved from the hot corner to SS. I wasn't aware that 1B was more of a defensive postion back then, too.

Ennui,
First base was more of a defensive position. But no one ever came up with a defensive adjustment, just that it was more valuable. People tried to prove it was more defensive by looking at aggregate OPS+ scores by position and decade, but nothing was ever translated into defensive adjustments (and you run into Anson, Brouthers, and Connor throwing OPS+ numbers out of whack). At least I never saw them and I requested them numerous times when I would make anti-Beckley posts. My feeling was the Deadball Era firstbasemen, such as Chance and Konetchy, who dealt with huge numbers of sacrifices and stolen base attempts deserved it more.
We talked about how first basemen should have more credit, and I think many people gave it, but it was either subconscious or no one ever publicly said how much more it deserved.

My population-per-team estimate is just the 18-34 year old male US population, divided by the # of MLB teams, with an unscientific guess for Latin Americans and the decline in participation by American blacks. It's quite inexact, of course, but it does show a strong (inverse) correlation to standard deviation. This is, to me, an interesting finding, since it means that the absolute greatest players have been improving at a slower rate than the rest of the league as population per team increases (which suggests that Ruth, Cobb, and Wagner would still have been superstars had they been born today).

Run scoring is interesting, theoretically. What's empirically true is that as run scoring goes up, standard deviation does too. I had initially thought that this was just because more R/G = more PA/G = more opportunities for players to distinguish themselves from each other, which is of course true. But I get a stronger correlation to standard deviation on R/G than on PA/G, which means that there's something about higher R/G leagues that spreads players out further from the mean *beyond* this OBP or PA effect (ie, of course a 150 OPS+ will "buy" more WARP1 in a high-scoring league than in a low-scoring one, because of the extra 50 PA or so per player-season, but it also appears to be easier to have a 150 OPS+ in the first place in a high scoring league than a low scoring one). I'm not sure what it is, I just know that it's empirically there. I'd love to hear thoughts on why this might be the case.

"Ease of domination" is just my shorthand to try to translate standard deviation for the group, and distinguish it from quality of play. (The 1998 NL, for example, was easier to dominate but had a higher quality of play than the 1908 NL). I am actually measuring the standard deviation of position player wins above average per 162 games (offense plus defense), so this shouldn't be applied to pitchers (I haven't done a study of them yet). And remember that I use the standard deviation *projected* by the regression equation rather than the actual one--the actual stdev in the teens was much higher in the AL than in the NL because Cobb, Speaker, and Collins were tearing it up, but they are not regressed more than Zack Wheat and George Burns. Perhaps the best way to think of ease of domination/stdev is: "If all we knew about a league were its time since expansion, player population per team, run scoring, DH use, and a few other less important factors, how many WS/WARP would we expect its MVP to have?"

Re 1B in the 1890s, I was no friend of Beckley's, but the worst 3/8 of regulars from 1893-1903 averaged 1.2 fewer wins above average per 162 games than they did from 1960-2005.

My feeling was the Deadball Era firstbasemen, such as Chance and Konetchy, who dealt with huge numbers of sacrifices and stolen base attempts deserved it more.

I recall once reading a newsarticle where Evar Swanson or some other basestealer from the 30s said that he was able to get a bigger lead off of Foxx than the other first baseman because Foxx wouldn't really try to tag runners on the pickoff play. I was unaware that anyone ever took this into consideration. I figured that the impact would be maybe a handful of runs. Was it more around the deadball era?

Factoid just discovered. So far, we have elected eight players who were rookies in 1970 or later. Two are in The Coop: Schmidt and Carter; six are outside: Bert Blyleven, Darrell Evans, Dwight Evans, Bobby Grich, Keith Hernandez, and Ted Simmons.

Keeler: (we know each other from local SABR meetings, I believe[Swanson] he was able to get a bigger lead off of Foxx than the other first baseman because Foxx wouldn't really try to tag runners on the pickoff play. I was unaware that anyone ever took this into consideration. I figured that the impact would be maybe a handful of runs.

Evidently in these words, it is a matter of degree, and it must be only a matter of degree. Foxx is holding runners on first but not very well. Maybe he didn't hustle on close plays?
Anyway, that degree determines the number of runs. It may be a small number of runs only because it is a small degree; Foxx "wouldn't really try" made a difference on only a few plays because he would tag them out "without really trying" if they took significantly bigger leads against him.

DanG:Factoid just discovered. So far, we have elected eight players who were rookies in 1970 or later. Two are in The Coop: Schmidt and Carter; six are outside: Bert Blyleven, Darrell Evans, Dwight Evans, Bobby Grich, Keith Hernandez, and Ted Simmons.

I daresay Freehan and Torre will raise more eyebrows when the crowds come visiting.

Of course that may support Dan Greenia's point. Everyone recognizes that Freehan and Torre are not only sabrmetric selections but avant garde special cases, so there is no disappointment that the BBWAA has not honored them. In contrast, it seems reasonable to be irked that the BBWAA "killed" (all but Blyleven and Hernandez?) from that seventies sextet.

Note the shortage of outfielders (Dwight Evans alone) among the eight players Dan names, not to mention the two older catchers, and the only 1Bman is half a "glove" selection here. The BBWAA may predictably do best at electing "bats", right? But 1970 rookies are smack in the middle of a period when there were unusually few star outfielders. And 1Bmen Perez and Allen started at 3B.

Between Yaz or Stargell and Murray or Henderson, who arrived on the scene?

Ennui Willie Keeler Posted: May 08, 2007 at 11:03 PM (#2359036)> My feeling was the Deadball Era firstbasemen, such as Chance and Konetchy, who dealt with huge numbers of
> sacrifices and stolen base attempts deserved it more.

I recall once reading a newsarticle where Evar Swanson or some other basestealer from the 30s said that he was able to get a bigger lead off of Foxx than the other first baseman because Foxx wouldn't really try to tag runners on the pickoff play. I was unaware that anyone ever took this into consideration. I figured that the impact would be maybe a handful of runs. Was it more around the deadball era?

Actually, I'm not sure whether Keeler means MLB baserunners or HOM participants. The quotation suggests that he means the latter. As a longtime reader (arrived 1904), I daresay that dozens of HOMeboys have considered the bunt & steal game of the deadball era, and have proceeded to take it seriously as a special and significant demand on the 1Bmen of that era. Some extend the point to Jake Beckley, whose career straddles the changes in the game.

Regarding 30, 40, and 50 years before Beckley, Chance, and Konetchy probably every one of Joe Start's supporters considered the introduction of the fielding glove at first base --none at all until the last ten years of his 28-year career-- and his reputation for reliability in that context. That is, reliably catching the throw to first was a special and significant demand on the 1Bmen of that era.

What no one has done in this forum, as far as I know, is bridge the chronological gap, even by speculation. That may be because ABC Anson Brouthers Connor were such outstanding batters, with D Delahanty the obvious candidates for greatest batsman of the 19th century. Assessment of fielding would have been relevant to consideration of any other 1Bmen of the 1870s-80s (betw Start & Beckley) but the issue didn't come up because the ABC candidates for unanimous election cast everyone else into shadow. (On a later, liberal standard JTM would have established threads for several "no-chancers" .)

Interesting to see that the 1918 holdovers are basically the centerfield-glut of GVH, Ryan, Duffy and Browning. Two holdovers from 1938 have a pretty good shot at induction which would leave Leach as the lone representative from that time.

OK... I was able to scan all the results pages and create a database of voting results. I reproduced all the numbers in Howie's post #12 (that post was great for validation). I uploaded a plot of results for 19th century sluggers to the yahoo group. I can also do point totals.

I haven't been able to easily cache individual ballot placement counts (number of #1's, number of #2's, etc) due to the lack of 0's in the results page, but that might be doable at some point... just now now.

Anyhow, if anyone wants other plots, let me know. They are quite easy to generate once the template is created (and they are big fun for me! :-)).

> Between Yaz or Stargell and Murray or Henderson, who arrived on the scene?

OF and 1B. My point, the gloves dwarf the bats in all-time context.

--
DavidFoss,
I have not yet looked at your plot. I will be grateful for a copy of the data because I would like to continue fiddling with some plots. If you welcome competing plots, pwendt at fas dot harvard dot edu is a better eddress to use now.

I have constructed my own master list of voting results for the purposes of making graphs and other general fun stuff. I was wondering if I could validate my list with what you have to generate post #12. Could we set up some sort of data exchange? I could sent you the file that I have.

(Yes, I received the file from David. And I asked him about integrity checks. I suppose that his integrity check, perhaps with Howie, will cover the number of ballots. Does anyone know whether the total number of points should be a fixed constant multiple of the number of ballots?)

David and others,

I have some specific annual data not all of which is simply derivative. For example, the number elected and the numbers of first- and quasi-first ballotees pertain to the quality of the eligible pool. For short, the number of first and quasi-first is the number "elected promptly".

I say "not simply derivative" although elected promptly might be programmed on a variety of definitions. I defined them as the smallest set of players who never ranked behind anyone outside the set and identified them manually (errorprone). Thus two first ballotees do not qualify as elected promptly in this sense, and the annual number of quasi-first ballotees is -1 twice. Rusie 1904 and Ashburn 1968 finished second behind ballot veterans who had previously trailed someone outside the set, eg Glasscock in 1904. (I will check 1898-1904 and post the series.)

. . .
The crux is that Stovey, elected slowly, ranked ahead of Radbourn as a newcomer in 1899. So Radbourn was not elected promptly. But Radbourn beat Wright in 1898; Wright beat Keefe in 1899; Wright and Keefe beat Glasscock in 1901; Glasscock beat Rusie in 1904. No one from the earliest elections except first ballotees (and not Rusie 1904) qualifies as elected promptly. In contrast, eight men on the 1934 ballot were elected promptly. Except for 1939-1940, there was at least one quasi-first ballotee every year 1933-1956. Groh and Suttles were on the ballot a "long time" but "elected promptly".